Thursday, September 10, 2009

Other researchers have made live frogs and grasshoppers float in mid-air before, but such research with mice, being closer biologically to humans, could help in studies to counteract bone loss due to reduced gravity over long spans of time, as might be expected in deep space missions or on the surfaces of other planets.

Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.

The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.

"It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented," said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

These days, it may seem dogs became house-trained to fit into stylish bags and wear diamond-studded collars. But a new genetic study puts forth a less refined explanation: Wolves may have first been domesticated in southern China for their meat, as reported in a New York Times article.

The study, using samples of so-called mitochondrial DNA from dogs around the world, showed all dogs belonged to one lineage, indicating a single domestication event. (If wolves were domesticated in various regions, the team would expect to find more than one lineage.)

They found the highest genetic diversity in dogs from southern China, suggesting this region was the point of origin as a species tends to lose diversity as it spreads. The results, published last week in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, also suggest such domestication occurred about 11,000 to 14,000 years ago, a time when hunter-gatherers first settled down in China's communities.

Study researcher Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm said the wolves probably domesticated themselves when they started scavenging around garbage dumps in these human settlements. Later, humans likely bred the dogs for their meat, he suggested. In fact, scientists have found dog bones with cut marks, supporting the dog-meat claim.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

For every woman expecting the earth to move, there are two with more practical motives.

From relieving boredom, to keeping the peace or curing a headache, women have sex for many reasons but romance and passion come rather low on the list, a new book has revealed.

One woman even admitted to having sex just so her husband would put the rubbish out.

"Research has shown most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all," Why Women Have Sex authors Cindy Meston and David Buss said.

Having apparently discounted physical attraction, the 1000 women interviewed by the Texas University professors gave a huge range of reasons for sleeping with a man.

One said she did it for a spiritual experience, proclaiming: "It's the closest thing to God."

But mostly the explanations were far more mundane, with 84 per cent admitting to having sex just to ensure a quiet life or to bargain for household chores. One woman said: "I have sex to relieve the boredom because it's easier than fighting. Plus it gives me something to do."

Arctic air temperatures in the 1990s were the warmest in the last 2,000 years and were a result of rising greenhouse gas levels, a new study concludes.

The findings, detailed in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Science, also suggest that if it weren’t for these manmade pollutants, temperatures around the North Pole would actually be cooling as a result of natural climate patterns.

"This result is particularly important because the Arctic, perhaps more than any other region on Earth, is facing dramatic impacts from climate change," said study team member David Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system."

Could this finally be it - 40 minutes of undisputed proof that we are not alone?

Scientists at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China believe it is a real possibility that this footage of an unidentified flying object is the evidence we have all been waiting for.

They have confirmed 40 minutes of footage of the object was captured during this summer's solar eclipse - and that research has already started on a year-long investigation to find out what it is.

And the scientists were not the only ones to capture the walnut-shaped object on camera.

The clear, daylight sighting occurred over Deqing in Guandong Province. Dozens of students claimed to have seen the object sailing through the air during a rooftop observation of the July 22 solar eclipse.

At least nine of the students photographed it, producing such incredible images as those here.

Maybe they thought it was called the Large Hardon Collider? From News.com.au:

High school students allegedly filmed sex acts while believing that the Large Hadron Collider was about to end the world.

At least three teenagers from a Brisbane state high school are being investigated by police for allegedly filming sex acts on a mobile phone and distributing it to other students, the Courier-Mail reports.

Two students aged between 13 and 15 performed the sex acts in the toilets during school hours several months ago.

The incident occurred after the launch of the particle accelerator ring, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which some dubbed a "doomsday device", sources told The Courier-Mail.

It is understood the girl wanted to lose her virginity to the boy - believing that the world was about to end.

Another student filmed the sex acts on his mobile phone without the girl's knowledge and then circulated it around the school and the wider community via bluetooth.

Coozer-Philes

About Me

From the co-founder of ReadJunk.com (a punk news/reviews site), the Coozer Files provides links and commentary on the obscure, oddball, science-geeky, and warnings about robots and zombies. Coozer is just a name and has nothing to do with genitalia.